Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy | Hacker News Reader

Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy

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70 pointsvo2maxer50 comments

The article surely likes to ask "but at what cost to the rest of the economy?".

And I was thinking: What a wonderful benefit for our planet :) and for those people.

Saving millions of people from their morning commute? Yes, please. Improved air quality due to less traffic? Yes, please. 70% less air travel? Yes, please. In addition to that, let's scrap a few parking lots and convert them into parks and then call it a day :)

Maybe I'm the odd one here, but I actually like working from home and playing with my son during lunch break. And I've always resisted company business trips as much as I could.

I'm wondering whats going to happen to all these sprawled out empty campuses, the miles of diabolically ugly 2-3 story buildings in santa clara.

I'd love them to become free range stock farms, with animals shitting on the carpets and in the lobby fountain. Or paintball ranges with a prebuilt post-apocalyptic office setting.

When they've been used up, doze em and put in a wavetank or something.

Reminds me of an old Abbot and Costello routine. They were interviewing a guest.

Guest: Did you know this place used to be a livery stable?

Abbott: You mean there used to be horses and jackasses in here?

Guest: Yep. Ain't changed much.

The shift to working from home may be a net positive for society and at the same time a net negative for the businesses in the “office economy”.

As a society, it is probably worthwhile to support the most vulnerable people in the latter sector, with the objective of expediting the transition.

Public parks are like public libraries, they're mostly just homeless shelters and places to deal drugs. As a city dweller I really don't get this rosy presentation of them that acts like they're somehow gifts to the community.

Obviously, you don't play golf. Scratch that. Obviously, you've never been to Singapore.

I have very fond memories of walking out of the air-conditioned shopping mall above the Waterfront MRT station and then walking through Mount Faber Park, Henderson Waves, Southern Ridges Park, Kent Ridge Park, and then back into an air-conditioned shopping mall at Kent Ridge MRT.

I took one of those walks almost every day, and in many cases co-workers or friends decided to join, because with the MRT system it's just so easy to quickly zip over to nature in your lunch break.

It's difficult to access this objectively, but I'm 100% convinced that this was a major factor in making my time in Singapore some of the most productive months I've ever had.

Also in Italy, the town squares were usually full with families and the elderly, sipping coffee and reading newspapers. But it was well understood that just by being there, they signal that they're available for you to just talk to people. Again, I felt like the strong communal spirit of having talked to 100+ neighbors in your village was fantastic, even if you only did small-talk about the newspaper.

Now if you could reduce the depression rate and related issues by 10% with a new well-maintained park. That'd be a significant GDP boost, so the economic value of such parks is probably in the billions of $$$.

How silly of me not to include "public golf parks", Italian town squares, and Singapore in a discussion about America. But then, there's nothing surprising about someone so privileged they can travel the globe having a loose grip on the reality being faced by most of the country.

I don't know in which shit-place you live, but the rest of the world loves parks.

Homeless People in public library? Maybe ask your Government why that is.

"The rest of the world" isn't the topic.

Everyone else but you....better?

Grammatically yes, in terms of relevance to the topic no.

well actually it is, a pandemic is by definition a global event, the shift to WFH/remote happens globally too

Not sure why you're thinking that? HN audience is definitely global.

Because public institutions aren’t allowed to have decency standards in this country.

My point was that parks can be truly good for the community. If that is not true for some parks in some parts of America, that seems more like a local problem to be fixed, rather than an issue with parks in general.

In case you're not aware, there's plenty of people in the US who dislike the "all concrete walls" look of suburbia and instead would prefer more communal living areas - even within big cities - to be modeled after Italy or Singapore.

So it makes a lot of sense to look at Singapore, even if you don't travel there yourself, for inspiration on how to combine skyscrapers and nature to make residents happy.

To be fair they double as ground-based needle disposal areas.

Again...ask your government why drug addicts have to hide in parks, in zurich every public toilet has a needle disposal built in (in "hotspots" the access to the toilet is free, and if you stay longer than 30 minutes the alarm rings). You don't want addicts in your shiny public toilet? Well then you have em in the bushes (with the needle). You don't solve problem by banning the peoples with that problem, in fact you make it worse for everyone.

Do the addicts have any responsibility for their actions?

Yes and No, that's not a easy question, hurt someone else? YES for sure. Being a addict or having psychological problem? NO.

BTW: It's not about responsibility, it's about protecting the public and/or the Addict, do you think it changes anything if you tell the addict that he is responsible for something...man he has much bigger problems.

Ain’t nobody hiding here. Those guys have taken over it’s their space and you will get assaulted if you go anywhere near. On the west coast the addicts are bold and have taken over public spaces

We had the same problem here (biggest drug selling and consuming place of heroin in Europe and we solved 95% of it)

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-needle-park-_25-years-on-th...

Don't let them take over..help them, it's better for everyone.

Public libraries are a treasure and the reason that a poor kid like me was able to learn, become more experienced with computers, and spend my time safely in a dangerous neighborhood while my mother worked.

Public parks are great. Some are shitty, but we all need space to roam and play. Most parks are not in shitty, run down neighborhoods and don’t fit your stereotype.

Do you think your experience as a kid would have been different if you were a kid not back then but rather in 2020?

If you have access to internet you can learn so much nowadays, obviously its a matter of having access to the internet, something not everyone has.

I was gifted an old laptop (even for back then) and used free dialup for some of high school at home (the old kind with ads). 15% of the US still has no internet access, but the situation has definitely improved. But I usually got to school early to use the computer lab and went to the library after school to read and use computers there.

Today’s kids have different problems, such as the huge amounts of disinformation and manipulation in media. The information we find today is harder to trust; and the conversations we have online are less about discovery or debate and more about political allegiances or getting attention.

Information I learned from books (with recommendations from my local librarian) was much more reliable imo, and the nature of books is such that they encourage more thorough understanding of their subjects. Now I can find nearly anything I need online, but that’s because I already have a huge amount of knowledge and know how to determine if a source is trustworthy.

But man, if Khan Academy existed in my childhood...

I did not know 15% of the population in the US still has no internet access, I assume mainly in rural areas?

In regards to "and the conversations we have online are less about discovery or debate" I partly agree partly disagree. I am part of various internet forums and some of them are very Web 1.0 still: good conversations, you get to know some people well (I even met some IRL). Part of me thinks its about persons willingness to find information themselves.

>Information I learned from books (with recommendations from my local librarian) was much more reliable imo, and the nature of books is such that they encourage more thorough understanding of their subjects. I agree, so many tech tutorials and articles are plain wrong.

I agree that libraries /can/ serve as a way to assist kids in low-income families but that doesn't make them the best option. More funding for after school programs and bus routes could accomplish the same thing while not forcing children to hang around a mix of crazies and addicts. Expanding the red line program to provide smartphones for low-income children in addition to the homeless would also increase access to the sorts of resources you're talking about.

That's more to do with living in a bad area.

what city are you dwelling where people don't use public parks and libraries?

I'm not American but that's a concept as foreign to me as someone claiming they don't need roads because they're just for drunk drivers.

In countries with massive income inequality, public parks are usually the only places where everyone can congregate, regardless of income or status. I go for a walk in the park near my house and I see people hanging out there whose daily incomes are less than the price of a coffee and a sandwich at Starbucks.

I think that's worth saving.

What you describe is just poor city planning. Parks are put in places where they aren’t getting used sufficiently in kind of odd corners of the city where they get taken over by vagrant. In areas where parks are properly located and designed vagrants tend to be pushed out because residents use the space and put pressure on officials to keep it clean. As soon as that pressure comes off though the space becomes lost.

It’s also very important not to provide services in areas near parks. The local library had a nice playground where the kids would do Easter egg hunts and play during the farmers market. During the pandemic they extended their wifi to cover the park and bam tents popped up and the space was lost. The entire block became unsafe. Then some do gooders showed up and started feeding the campers and bam now the entire area is wall to wall tents and they are overflowing to adjacent areas.

It's pretty gross how this comment just assumes that homeless people shouldn't count as residents of a city, and that the best solution to homelessness is to withhold services and force them out. People without a place to live are experiencing a constant state of emergency. It really sucks to lose the use of a park with your kids, but have some compassion.

I think too much compassion and inaction has really caused us to misalocate resources. If it were up to me I might open that park up now to people loosing housing, or homeless families with children that need some sort of internet to attempt the mess that is the school year. Instead we get a bunch of 20-30 year old men that have chosen the drug life and have taken over a public space though intimidation and violence. I don’t have a lot of compassion for that sort of behavior.

Reading this, I can't help but wonder:

Maybe Italy and Singapore just have a lot less homeless than the US?

In my experience, people camping in public places was mostly tourists, usually students.

It might be that your experience is mostly due to you living in an area with very high income inequality.

That might be part of it but also super liberal city.

I just keep thinking about all the money I was wasting on things I never truly enjoyed but bought because they were convenient and available. A cup of mediocre coffee, an overpriced sandwich, clothes I wasn't particularly comfortable in, an evening snack, then ordering expensive and unhealthy dinner because you're too tired to cook.

Have you heard of FIRE(Financial Independence Retire Early? You might find it interesting

The article focuses on the small businesses serving office workers downtown, and on air travel.

Dry-cleaners, cafes, shoe repairers, gyms, beauticians, nail bars, copy centres, florists, newsagents, office supply stores, etc.

The second order effect on real estate isn't discussed. If a lot of these businesses disappear, along with a large fraction of office workers, building owners may not be able to service their costs (finance, insurance, maintenance, etc.)

I guess Wall Street will get another bail-out at that point.

Not sure about anyone else, but I've been enjoying supporting the cafes, restaurants, bars, and shops near my home and getting to know the people in my community, rather than spending my money in the CBD.

To me, this doesn't feel like a loss of economy, just a shift away from spending at big corps to spending in smaller businesses.

while that's great, the shift isn't equal. on average I'd wager that spending has gone down overall even if it's shifted elsewhere geographically. And office real estate has taken a massive blow along with cbd restaurants and vendors

Even in the middle ages there would be a substantial rabble of 'service sector' entrepreneurs following the troops around to provide repairs, food and other entertainment services. Peace was the last thing these people wanted as their whole livelyhood depended on the perpetual war campaigns.

Clearly the so called office Technology company WeWork was not future ready. Nor are office real estate people.

This is quite literally the worst case scenario for them. I've been morbidly curious what the knock-on effect of a meltdown in CMBS bonds and other securities would look like.

As an aside, since employees are now responsible for their work environment, how do we factor that into pay and/or possible tax write-offs?

Remember that scene in "The Accountant" movie where the accountant says "No, the company's truck" meaning that since the truck is kinda used to carry some fluff that the family eventually sells, the truck gets a special tax status. In other words, since you use half of your house as an office, can you deduct half of your mortgage from taxes?

Love that movie, love that scene in particular.

Not half your mortgage exactly, but this has existed for a while: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

People in the UK have to be wary of that because it can leave you liable for capital gains tax.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

You make your connections, build your relationships and stumble upon great ideas during the breaks between the meetings, the coffee breaks, and around the water cooler. You lose all that when you work from home.

Crazy random thought here. It could be that a tiny tiny percentage of the people leaving are a little bit influenced by their cities being burned down by mostly peaceful protesters.

Which cities have been "burned down"?

Portland, Milwaukee, Kenosha, Chicago, New York, and more. I exaggerated for effect but hundreds of businesses there are permanently destroyed, dozens of cops have been blinded, and emergency services to the affected areas have been sharply degraded. Black owned businesses have been disproportionately harmed. Constitutional protections are nonexistent.

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